Thanks but no thanks: Dear aunts

Disclaimer: all the mentioned characters are fictitious and any resemblance to anyone living or dead is purely coincidental.

A brilliant young scientist works in ISRO, does some real ground breaking work on geosynchronous satellite launches and India leaps ahead in global space competition, he is a south Indian.

A brilliant young lady studying in one of the leading institutes of technology in our country, working on collaborative grid computing, the future of all complex computation, she is from central India.

A brilliant young man who thinks that Indian postal system is an epitome of a perfectly managed organisation and can be used with any idea to change the face of rural India. He is a north Indian.

A brilliant young man designing novel gas engines that will change automobiles forever. She is from western Indian.

A brilliant young lady saving hundreds of lives every year in operation theatres. She is from eastern India.

A brilliant young lady selecting young minds who will take her organisation to new hieghts. She is a south Indian.

Each of them live in a world that has terrorism and unity. All hate the terrorists and all want a single united India. Each of them want brotherhood, peace and consider religious discrminiation and caste system as draconian concepts but when it comes to marriages these concepts are non negotiable, not in this country, not in this century!!

The guy from south India has a chance to marry the girl from south india only if she belongs to the same caste and sub caste. The other people I talked about have no particular chances of getting married, even if they are madly in love with each other and have a chance of spending a successful life.
Marriage is an institution in India run by aunts and this responsibility is transferred from a generation to the other. I really have a problem understanding this concept of arranged marriages. We hate people bombing us, trying to disrupt peace and unity in our country, we hate riots, but wait a second do we really love our unity so much?? I think we Indians hate mixing, we hate togetherness, we cannot dream about inter caste marriages and we despise inter ethnic marriages. Can anyone explain this to me, without quoting the figures on successful arranged marriages and percentages?

We say we have to be together in this shining India, we have to collaborate ideas, mix thoughts and go ahead. My question is why cant we mix with each other? why do we just hope to develop this nation protected by those walls? Is it just because someone long back said it was not nice for a Gujarati to marry an Assamese or because Sikhs prefer kheer to sevayiyan in Id, or because a Bengalis usually (I said usually) murder English or because the parents of a Brahmin groom and Kannada bride are confused which mantras to read while marrying them??

Theres a flaw, if we cannot accept two people with diverse cultures living together, we are still in stone age, living in steel jungles and silion trees belonging to hostile tribes ostentatiously saying that we are ONE country when in reality we are a bunch of countless small factions distributed in an area. My ISRO brother can fall for that brilliant young lady working with him, why cant they marry and have kids who uphold both the cultures and languages? If you think that traditions and cultures would be at stake due to this mixing, I would like to ask you would you have forgotten your culture if married to someone not belonging to your religion? If yes, then its good your not, if no then wheres the problem??
I need more insight into this aunt cum jyotishi driven policy and why like all bad things it has stayed in this country for so long and if it has a time limit, how long will it continue to be there? When I see my country producing a million technocrats and growing at 15% annually with no such thing as the Below Poverty Line, I dont want my mom to go to the newspapers office with :

A good looking Sikh girl preferably engineer belonging to a good family for a handsome engineer BTech ICT, earning well, living in Bangalore.

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4 Responses to “Thanks but no thanks: Dear aunts”

I know about how it feels to live in a divided world, albeit of a different source.

I was once a Christian but when I left because I found the Buddha’s answers to be the truth because of my experience, my old Christian friends tried to reconvert me; when I didn’t they got mad and left me behind. The religion talks about love and to help the sinners, but truly if you are not one their own often times, they dump you like you were inferior.

Personally, I find the idea of arranged marriage more of an experiment rather than a logical way to find a partner. Because of the social structure that we have followed for hundreds of years, many of us are able to take this experiment without much questioning, fully accepting the absurdity of it. As long as people are not forced into arranged marriages, I think the perspective will gradually change in the long run.

The core issue, still would be, as you said, the reluctance of people to accept an ‘outsider and the social prejudices associated with marriages like dowry and caste.

I think opposition to intercaste marriages will wear off once there is more social interaction with other cultures, which means it will only get better in future.

But I have to agree with you, in certain regions in India, marriages make a mockery of common sense. Especially those NRIs who go to India on a one week bride-hopping, and ‘selects’ one among the 100 he has seen in a week. The plight of a girl who has to dress up, serve tea to impress this idiot and finally left with a choice of getting rejected and paying thousands of rupees for the marriage and dowry. Ridiculous.

I dont mind anybody except the micro brained north indians and the muslims. As long as dont marry one of them, your offsprings would have a good IQ. But if you do, only the almighty can save you …………………